- Baldassare Castiglione by Raphael, - Wikipedia
The Book of the Courtier, published in 1528, was a work of a diplomat and scholar Baldassare Castiglione. The text served as a guide to an ideal conduct of courtiers and included discussions on visual arts. Knowledge of art was considered a necessary accomplishment for any ambitious person wishing to secure their place in aristocratic circles.
In the extract from the book, titled 'Courtiers discuss merits of painting and sculpture' , a group of nobles debate the arts. Led by a Count, the conversation reveals something about the Renaissance attitudes to art and artists.
Gentleman and Knowledge of Art
Count opens the discussion with the stress on the importance for a gentleman of standing, of the ability to draw and paint. This shows that debate took place in this period about the importance of art, specifically art of painting and sculpture as artists and art enthusiasts wanted to elevate the status of art from that of mechanical to liberal discipline.
Count makes references to ancient Greek and Roman noblemen who considered the ability to paint an important part of education that could enhance their reputation. He says that many respectable men became painters in antiquity. Associating the classical cultural values with the current debates about art seems to suggest that the notion of art as intellectual activity was not necessarily widely accepted by society at the time and its advocates felt the need to justify their aspirations.
Imitation of Nature
Painting, according to Castiglione, is ‘a most noble and worthy art’ for those who can draw and paint are able to imitate Nature. Indeed, he likens Nature to a painting made by God and ‘whoever can imitate it deserves the highest praise’. Imitation was deemed a highly valued skill. In this connection, he highlights the role of drawing or ‘good design’ that was at the base of creating the antique statues that were considered the best examples of art.
From this stance we can deduce that the antique statues that were available to view in Italy served as a model of perfection to which all the artist should aspire. They were valued for their degree of imitation of nature. Castiglione goes on to claim that this skill is determined by ‘the knowledge of many things’ suggesting that artist should not be seen as a mere manual worker but rather as a scholar.
Painting Vs Sculpture
The discussion then moves on to arguments about superiority of painting or sculpture. Cristoforo represents those who valued sculpture more than painting because of its ‘dignity’, while Castiglione claims that painting is more because it allows greater scope for naturalistic representation. Painting can not only depict a human body like sculpture does, it can also depict three dimensional space (landscape, seascape, townscape, figures) through foreshortening, lighting and perspective as well as through colour.
These arguments mean that the distinctions of artistic forms were debated in terms of their perfection in representing nature. What was being considered was the degree of convincing illusionism as well as artists’ skills required to achieve the illusion of reality.
Artistic Individuality
This also tells us that individual artist’s skills were increasingly acknowledged and with that artist as an individual began to be recognized. Castiglione greatly admired Raphael. However, this brought forward another point of issue and that is whether a work of art should be considered great for its artistic quality or for its authorship.
Count concludes by stating that antiquity was a period when painting reached perfection. The classical literature was the main source of knowledge of ancient painting. To emulate the perfection of antique art was to be the main concern of contemporary artists.
Sources:
- Courtiers discuss the merits of painting and sculpture, in Renaissance Art Reconsidered, An Anthology of Primary Sources, ed. by Carol M Richardson, Kim W Woods and Michael W Franklin, Blackwell Publishing 2007.
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